🇷🇺🌏 Cathedral of Kaliningrad.

Kaliningrad is the westernmost city in Russia near the Baltic Sea.

Photo: natalia_bru

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Beauty Will Save the World🌏🇷🇺

Take a pause and enjoy the views of the Nenets Autonomous District.
Music:
“My vast” – Nenets song
Performed by Ekaterina Salinder

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♟♟By the end of the 19th century, chess life in Russia had taken on mature forms. Chess clubs opened — in St. Petersburg, Moscow, and other cities. Tournaments were held. Strong players appeared.

Among Petrov’s younger contemporaries were Ilya Shumov (1819–1881) and Sergey Urusov (1827–1897). Shumov served in the civil service, while Urusov was in the military. He took part in the Crimean War and retired in 1859 with the rank of major general in order to devote more time to chess.

Shumov was known not only as a strong player, but also as a chess composer and trainer — among his pupils were, in particular, Emanuel Schiffers (a German born and died in St. Petersburg) and Adolf Albin (whose name is associated with one of the Queen’s Gambit lines — the Albin Countergambit). Like Petrov, Shumov received an invitation to the first international chess tournament in London in 1850, but, like Petrov, he was unable to leave his service and go there.

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🌏🇷🇺 BIP Castle, Pavlovsk.

Pavlovsk is a municipal town in Pushkinsky District in the suburban part of the federal city of St. Petersburg, Russia.

Photo - Dmitry Loginov

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By the end of the century, however, a new star shone brightly in the Russian chess sky — Mikhail Chigorin.

Chigorin’s parents died early, and he spent his childhood in an orphanage in Gatchina — a small town near St. Petersburg. (Once a royal residence, it now houses the St. Petersburg Institute of Nuclear Physics — each of these could be the subject of a separate story.) After finishing school, Chigorin took a job in St. Petersburg as a clerk in the police department. But all his free time he spent in Café Dominic, then the center of chess life in the city.

He improved rapidly. In 1874 he took third place (after Schiffers and Shumov) in the tournament featuring best Russian chess players. Soon he surpassed his teachers, defeated Schiffers in matches, and became the undisputed leading chess player of Russia. He left his police position, becoming the first Russian chess professional.

On two occasions, he played matches for the world championship against Wilhelm Steinitz. In both encounters he lost, but in the second match (held in Havana in 1892) he fought on equal terms and had good chances of success. Unfortunately, in the final game of the match, he blundered a simple checkmate in a winning position. Chigorin later complained about the exhausting Cuban heat, which was hard to endure for a man from the north.

In his later years, Chigorin suffered from diabetes — and at that time there was no cure for this disease. He passed away in 1908.

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Chigorin left a significant mark on chess theory. An opening bears his name — the Chigorin Defense (1. d4 d5 2. c4 Nc6). There is also the Chigorin Variation in the French Defense (1. e4 e6 2. Qe2), as well as Chigorin Variations in the Ruy Lopez and the Slav Defense.

Chigorin was a player of sharp, combinational style. Here is one of his most famous combinations. His opponent, playing White, was the strong chess master Isidor Gunsberg (who, like Chigorin, played a world championship match with Steinitz — and, like Chigorin, lost).

The diagram shows the position after White’s 35th move. Black is attacking, but it seems that White has successfully defended. But no. Chigorin sacrifices a rook: 35. ... Rxf3!

The game continued:
36. Qxf3 Qd2+ 37. Kg1 Bf2+ 38. Kf1 Nd4 39. Bxd4 Qxc1+ 40. Ke2 Rxh1 41. Bxf2 Qxb1 42. g5 Qf1+ and White resigned. Chess players can set up this position on the board (or on their chess engine) and be convinced that White had no defense — after Rxf3!, all the variations lose.

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